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Category Archives: Cheats

When I was little, my mom used to always cook me, my dad, and my two sisters a whole-hearted healthy dinner. That being said, she always made vegetables and we had to finish them from our plate before we could get up. When it came to green beans, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, peas, or a few others, I had no problem chowing them down with my mouth full of braces. But, slap some squash or cooked carrots in front of me and I would sit there forever and gag every time I tried forcing it in my mouth.

Well, almost 15 years later, I am a proud vegetable eater and my new obsession is…

CARROT CHIPS.

Unbelievable right?! I still hate steamed/cooked carrots, but the way I’ve been making them, I could eat the sh*t out of them! And it’s super easy to prepare and you just throw it in the oven. First, you have to be lazy and buy the pre-cut carrot chips. Since I don’t have a mandoline (I really really want one!), this is way easier than fussing around with a knife for hours.

Then, you throw however many you want in a Ziploc bag, toss with your choice of cooking oil, add whatever spices you like (I like Mrs. Dash’s Garlic & Herb blend), and put in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 425.

One of my favorite stores, The Fresh Market, has the most deceiving name. About 1/5 of their store is healthy and fresh, while the rest is filled with tempting chocolate covered everything, any flavored chips, homemade cookies, desserts, fake-looking cupcakes, and basically anything that would keep me locked up for days with a stomach ache. I guess a lot of it’s fresh, but when I think fresh, I think healthy. Do you think this is healthy?

And no, I didn’t cave in and buy it. I was just that weirdo that stands there and gawks at all the cheat food and looks at all the nasty things in it. Maybe the next time I lose all self-control, I’ll head back to The Cheat Market and devour this tiny cup of heaven. But not any time soon =) Paleo Challenge is going awesome and The Cookie Dough Cafe is not going to slow me down!!!!

Mark your calendars! Paleo season is in full swing! As I said in my last blog, tomorrow is the official beginning of CrossFit Instinct’s Paleo Challenge – I’m throwing on my animal hide 60 days of hunting meat, foraging vegetables, nibbling on little amounts of nuts and seeds, and getting full of radiant health. Okay, not that extreme but I’m excited to tackle another challenge. Being the overenthusiastic and slightly-OCD person I am, I decided today will be the first day I stay 100% Paleo. Simply, I have been allowing too many cheats into my mouth. They’re sneaky like that.

Last weekend, I gave into peer pressure and inhaled some ice cream (chocolate chip cookie dough and mocha almond crunch to be exact- and it was freaking awesome) and then had a food baby for 2 days. Later in the week, since I was already on a downward slope, I decided that some dark chocolate covered almonds would make me feel better. WRONG. The food baby appeared again. Once a month, sweet cravings take over me and I am under their power for a few painful days…

But now, I’m on track and even bought Melissa Joulwan’s cookbook, Well Fed, and it is awesome; tons of easy recipes and ways to tweak everything. I HIGHLY suggest her book if you need some Paleo-spiration. I also bought the iPhone App, Fast Paleo for even more ideas and more excuses for me not to slip up and end up in a carb-coma.

Here’s a picture of one of the things I already made… Chopping, cooking, and cleaning are always done best when listening to Skrillex Radio on Pandora (hence the title; Skrillex + Skillet = Skrillet). It automatically makes you go faster and bust out some dance moves! Good thing I live up high and people can’t see me… I think.

It’s so good and the veggies are good alone or dipped in paleo mayo. I usually add weird things (like hot sauce) to the mayo and use that as a dip for everything.

cauliflower Rice

Here’s some cauliflower rice before being cooked. This stuff is the $h!t. This is a full head and it makes about 3-4 cups and tastes like heaven with coconut aminos. I’ll be making a ton of this and upping my cauliflower intake for life!

Well I made more stuff and took more pictures but my computer decided to not upload them so I guess that’s all for now. Hopefully more to come later!

Do you hear that? Oh, that’s just the pool calling my name. Time to go get my dose of Vitamin D! 😀

Hi! Did you miss me? It’s been a while… big girl life has started to take over and just as I’m getting into the groove of my schedule, it’s going to all change starting Tuesday! Helloooo again to early mornings!

Well, one the most exciting weekends of the year is over – CrossFit Regionals. I got to watch two of my coaches compete and kick some CrossFit a$$! Watching beasts knock out some heavy weights and crazy WODs got the gears in my head turning again and now I have even more goals to add to my list. I would love to compete with a team there someday, maybe in two years…. Bottom line, I want to be a bada$$ beast like the girls there. It also was reassuring to see tall girls there… there’s hope!

Me and the man

Go Tim!!!!

Coach Tom!

AMEN!

I had a gazillion pictures and videos, but they didn’t do justice to seeing it all in person. Watching the top athletes do muscle-ups with ease and throw around big weights makes everything look easy. Then I remember how much hard work it takes and how much pain and time is put into it and it makes me want to grow up to be a CrossFit athlete. Screw work and everything else. Let’s WOD all day and play in the gym. Who needs all that other stuff?

Speaking of stuff, I bought more clothes. That means that almost 90% of my closet is stuffed with CrossFit related shirts… not to mention headbands and knee socks. I think I have more knee socks than regular socks… I have a problem.

So what did I do on the way home from the most motivating weekend ever?? Cheated. Me and Cole stopped at this small place and decided we deserved a small treat after three days of all-out cheering. We split some cheesy pub chips and then I got pulled pork and nibbled at a few baked beans. Have I mentioned that my body doesn’t agree with dairy? Cheese is the worst. We were only about an hour away from being home so when we were about 25 minutes away, it felt like I was getting stabbed in my stomach and I knew the cheese had hit. I learned my lesson. Then it started raining ungodly hard so it was not a fun drive the rest of the way home. Cheese + Caroline = sick. I won’t go into details, ha!

My body is still sore, thanks to my sister for writing me up a Westside Barbell workout to help build up my upper body strength.

I felt like a T-Rex when I was done. I had to drive back up to Bloomington right after this and holding the steering wheel felt terrible. Good thing I have knees that help drive =)

Know what else I found out I’m doing Saturday? COMPETING in a small competition. OMG I’m already nervous. I love competing but sometimes my nerves take over, so I figure that if I want to eventually make it to Regionals, I need to learn to stay calm. Hopefully they have on-sight bathrooms. Even though this is nothing like Regionals, you have to start somewhere right? But, it will be a blast so I’m excited!

Then that night is a 2-year CrossFit Instinct party! #pumpedcity. Let’s just say that there is probably going to be some drunken handstands, pullups, pistols, and other fun things involved. CrossFit people are so fun!

I’ll leave you with goals/timeline that my sister wrote on the CrossFit Instinct white board. Time to dial in and get serious!

Oh, and I got to see Chevelle in concert last night. A-freaking-mazing. They officially are my new favorite; I love them more than I already did. They sounded awesome. Be jealous.

WHOA. Where has the time gone?? These past 4 days have been so exciting and busy, they have literally flown by.

Wednesday was officially my last day of school and my last final; I was up nice and early to study since it was at 7:50am. It was also the day my sister had to defend her thesis and I was lucky enough to go watch all of her dedication and hard work pay off– she did an awesome job! Afterwards, we decided we needed to celebrate, true ISU style, and head over to The Pub. At 2:45pm. It was all downhill from there.

I had my first non-Whole30 item in 42 days! Beer. I can’t lie, it was mighty tasty. After sitting and chatting for a couple hours, we headed down to Medici, a little restaurant/bar in uptown, to meet with some of my sisters classmates and teacher. What’s the smartest thing to do after having pitchers of beer? A blueberry muffin martini. To put it lightly, this thing was nasty. And strong. The kind of strong where you get goosebumps and a twisted face after taking a sip.

After choking down that glass of blue grossness, we went back to The Pub and I thought I might as well keep switching things up and get some Vodka Lemonades. Mmm those were super good! If you’ve ever been to Normal and experienced The Pub on a Wednesday night, you know it gets crazy packed and full of college kids. Since there was nowhere for our big group to sit together, we headed to a friend’s apartment and started playing this stupid game. With beer. And I sucked bad at the game. All of that equals disgusting things.

My alcohol adventure

Let’s just say my night didn’t end pretty. I saw swiss chard and meatza in ways I never want to see them again. Ew.

As my sister said, at least I went out with a bang! Ha, funny because I woke up Thursday and felt like pure death. I felt paralyzed. I couldn’t even move out of bed for an hour; when I did, I moved to my couch and laid there. I somehow mustered up energy to take a shower and amazingly didn’t fall over. It might have been the worst 3 hours of my life. AND I had to start packing my apartment up that day. Ugh, it was a horrendous day to get through.

Friday was 100 times better because I actually worked out back at CrossFit Instinct! It was me, my sister, and a fellow female member (she’s going to Regionals yay!) and we did a partner-trio WOD-

Two people flipped a 205 lb. tire back and forth while the other person completed 10 KB swings (with a 70#!) and 30 double unders for a total of 10 min. I’ve never used a 70# KB in a WOD before and it was a monster! My forearms are still sore from that dang tire too! The other ladies did amazing and it was so fun to get a good workout in.

What’s even better is that my other sister drove back to ISU with me to celebrate me and my other sister’s graduations! It was such a fun night hanging out with both of them- I love having 2 older sisters who are my best friends! =)

<3<3<3

Saturday was moving/graduation day. I love how the apartment places make us move out by 5pm on graduation day… so nice. Thank God my sister was here to help me or I would have been SOL. Finally, graduation happened, we went out to dinner with my parents (yay!) and they took another load of my junk home. Moving is such a headache, but I’m lucky I moved into my sisters apartment while she’s away for the summer.

So that’s it. Tomorrow starts another chapter in life – the summer internship. We get to pay the school for a “class” so I can work for free for 12 weeks. Makes so much sense, right? What I am super excited for is this weekend… North Central CrossFit Regionals!!!!!!! Yay! I will be the best cheerleader in the crowd.

Ok, time to shower and chill. Went on a 90 minute bike ride for the first time in ages so I’m probably going to be sore in all the wrong spots tomorrow!

What is it about today? I’m going to get out all negativity right now:

-It’s depressing, cold, and cloudy outside

-It’s Tuesday

-I’m still sore from Friday (even after other workouts)

-School is annoying

-I’m still tired after a solid 8.5 hours of sleep. By solid I mean no-movement-I-woke-up-in-the-same-spot

-Hunger pains have been striking a lot lately

-Motivation is at an all time low

The bottom line says it all. The thing is that I don’t know why! Last week felt amazing and I was pumped to eat good and WOD hard. Now, this week has done a complete 180. Cravings are hard core and I feel like a lazy slug. If I had no self-control and real-life views on eating, I would go out and buy some candy, ice cream, popcorn, and other devastating cheat food and sulk in my laziness. Thankfully I know better and would feel sick for days if I indulged that bad.

Man, this is a real uplifting post, huh?

The thing is, today is day 28 and I thought I would be feeling on top of the world and super duper motivated to keep going… it couldn’t be more of the opposite. Aaaagggghhhh. Hopefully going to WOD in a couple of hours will help get me out of this annoying funk.

The one cool, superfun thing I am doing tonight??? My sister and I are going to go see Shrek live in Peoria! How awesome is that?!

Staying up a bit later than normal will totally be worth it. This will be a good break from my typical Tuesday night consisting of The Biggest Loser. I. Can’t. Wait. Weeeeee!

I was so excited to write about my dinner that I didn’t even do the dishes yet. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was gooooood. Like I-felt-like-I-was-cheating good. So what was this stupefying, amazing, yummy-in-my-tummy meal?

I was nervous about the broccoli and kale because I ate so much of them last year, that I thought I was still kind of burned out on them. WRONG. The broccoli tasted like the kind from one of my favorite places (MCL..yep.) and the kale chips gave me my chip fix. I could re-eat that meal again in a heart beat. The best part? I don’t feel over-stuffed, bloated, or gross. Now that’s a Whole30 success meal.

Know something that was gross? I was walking home from class this afternoon and this boy that was walking behind me was hocking loogies every 10 seconds. Yes, I started counting seconds between hocks. He was kind of far behind me and I swear I’d hear the loogies land closer and closer to me. Sick. I turned around and gave him “a look”, but he had on his over-sized headphones and was looking at the ground. So if you come across a loogie trail on campus, it wasn’t me.

And that was the ending of a day that started off the right way.. last night. Right before I was going to lay down, I heard a car pull into my parking lot – the music was stupid loud. It gets better. The driver crawled out of the drivers seat, careful not to spill her beer and yelled (to my neighbor) “Get ready biiiiiaaaatch!”. Two seconds later, the bass started bumpin’ and the jewelry on my walls shook. Wiz Khalifa isn’t my idea of a lullaby. 15 minutes after listening to deafening music, they turned it down to a quiet roar. Oh, I love my neighbors.

While I was waiting to get my hearing back, I scrolled through Pinterest… always a bad idea before bed. And when you don’t eat sweets and are poor. The no-bake Reese’s brownies and cookie dough bake made me drool before I decided I needed to stop dreaming and waste my time looking at my dream house ideas!

A small disclaimer: I know I always talk about cheat foods – you probably think I’m obsessed with cheating and have a terrible time sticking to Paleo and Whole30. Well, to clear some things up, I do love my sweets but prior to the Whole30 challenge, I didn’t cheat that much. I only like to pretend and visualize how awesome the foods would taste; then real world kicks in I know how it affects me and how it’s not worth it. So no, I’m not a sweet-eating monster. But, if they were Paleo I would be! For now, my dinner is tops and no cookie or ice cream can get me down!

Today’s the end of day 15! Awesome, right?! I feel like it hasn’t even been that long so hopefully that means that the next 15-25 days will go just as fast!

Having a strict WOD schedule helps out too – Today (at Fit Bodies) was 5 rounds of 10 power cleans and 15 toe to bar… My toe2bar need work. bad. I thank them for the 3 new nasty bubbles on my hands! The soreness is starting to kick in a little bit – like holding my arms out to do things kinda hurts. But I can’t wait to WOD again tomorrow… unless there are burpees then I can wait to WOD. You know what I mean.

Alright all you people…thanks for reading my blog and listening to me babble on about my life. You’re awesomely cool – good karma should be sent your way! =)

Quote of the day: “Our lives are what our thoughts create” -Wayne Dyer

^^I like that quote and that man so much that I have it as a permanent reminder on me. You rock, Wayne!

Ohmygoodness. I just realized it’s day 13 out of day 30. And I’ve made it through 2 full weekends, which were always my downfall; wings and dried fruit always seemed to creep in on a Saturday or Sunday… Not this time! Woo! Easter was also yesterday, which is usually my ultimate candy cheat day. I remember when I was maybe in 3rd or 4th grade and I gave up some sweets for Lent – including my favorite breakfast, S’mores Pop Tarts. Man, I could eat the $h!t out of those things. I would always usually give up sweets for Lent because it was something that I loved, so when Easter rolled around (AKA Lent was over), it was go time. The Easter bunny always loaded me and my sisters’ baskets with the best Easter candy.. ya know, Reese’s Eggs, Cadbury Eggs, M&Ms, Peeps, Whoppers, marshmallow bunnies – basically everything you’d find in the candy aisle.

But, my mom (aka my favorite Easter bunny) knows that I’m currently Whole30 so there was no candy sent my way – it’s great to have supportive people around, respect what you’re doing, and not tempt you. Speaking of temptations, I went to another movie this weekend. This time, I brought some meat, strawberries, and a few nuts. Good thing no one was sitting next to me =) Then, my almost-all-the-time -Paleo fellow caveman ordered wings. He said he felt bad eating them in front of me, so he gave me the celery. Thanks.

Soooo, I was going to wait until after I completed the Whole30 to do this, but I had a bad itch for it and went for it. Know that little flap on your ear that attaches by your cheek bone? Yep, I got my tragus pierced. My boyfriend got to sit there and watch me get a needle jammed through it. My pain tolerance is pretty high for this stuff so it stung for about 2 seconds (unlike the painful minutes of Fran) and still hasn’t bothered me. I ❤ piercings. It’s #15. I swear they’re all on my neck up besides my belly button ha.

Today is my rest day since I did 4 days of WODing before this. I got in some GHD sit-ups yesterday and as time goes on, the soreness in my abs is getting worse and worse. And my traps are tender. But it’s that good sore that borderline pain I like. Crazy? Yes.

Since I get pretty tired of slugging back water every day, I gave in and bought some tea from Starbucks. I highly recommend it; it tastes good hot or cold and they sell it in stores, too!

I’ve been blabbing a lot lately about my breakfast and thanks to my sister, she reminded me to post the recipe. So, here it is . I’ve also thrown in some peppers and other veggies that I have lying around and it all works and makes it yummy! I make the whole recipe and cut it into fourths so I can have it for the remainder of the week. Preparation is key to Whole30!

Looking for an interesting documentary about how messed up our food system and government are? FRESH shows some pretty crazy stuff and serves as an eye-opener. It also serves as some motivation to eat better!

Enough randomness for now. Hope everyone is enjoying their Easter hangover because I feel GREAT! No, I’m not rubbing it in or anything. Just saying.